Ethiopian taxi driver in Las Vegas receives reward for returning lost bundle of cash

(Yahoo News) — Adam Woldemarim, the driver, discovered the cash stuffed in a soft laptop case that was left between the seats of the Virgin Valley Cab vehicle. Woldemarim then did what anyone feeling lucky in Sin City would do: He turned it in.


The 42-year-old from Ethiopia took the case to the cab company’s security office, which soon got a call from the case’s owner, who, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “won big at the Wynn and was on his way to the airport when he [realized] he forgot a little something.”

Woldemarim was called back to the security office, where the big winner gave him a $2,000 reward.

But according to the Review-Journal, Woldemarim’s friends and fellow cabdrivers are wondering where the rest of his tip is:

That’s all?” they ask. “How about 10 percent, at least? That’s $20,000!”

Others yell, “How about 15 or 20 percent? That’s the going rate for tips in Vegas, after all.”

“It would have been nice if my good friend got more money,” Alex “Baharu” Alebachew, a fellow cabbie, told the paper. “But I think the most important thing here is that a lot of people think foreign cabdrivers like us abuse tourists or they long haul their customers or we’re just here causing problems and we don’t belong here. They never see the good side to us, the honest side. If you can just print that, that would be nice.”